Seven Basic Quality Management Tools

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Seven Basic Quality tools documents

Definition of Quality Management -- it is a method for ensuring that all the activities necessary to design, develop and implement a
product or service are effective and efficient with respect to the system and its performance. It is also a principle set by the company
to endure the continuous advocacy of quality services and products, or the further improvement of it.

Welcome to QT-charts knowledge base section.
Hopefully you will find some of them useful in your work. (Read articles below to learn more.)

All you want to know about Six Sigma

Introduction:

Six
Sigma was the expression given as a synonym by Motorola in 1986 for their
quality program. Since then, a general defenition has developed, and it has
become a useful technique for measuring quality. It has become a tool used
particularly among technology driven companies such as Allied Signal, General
Electric, Kodak, and Texas Instruments. What does it mean to be “Six Sigma”
anyway? Its goal is to reduce output varibability through process
improvement. Six Sigma refers to an organizations measure of quality that
strives for near perfection. What can it do for your organization? If your
organization is focused on customer satisfaction, then Six Sigma will offer you
a method and some tools for identification and improvement of both internal and
external process problems to better meet customers’ needs by identifying the
variations in your organization’s processes that might influence the customer’s
point of view negatively.

How Does Six Sigma Work, and How To:

How
to:

Okay,
okay, how do you use Six Sigma then? Six Sigma is based on the normal
distribution theorem by Carl-Friedrich Gauss with this formula:

This
formula describes a curve whose form is defined by two parameters, the mean
average value, and the standard deviation “sigma.” Six Sigma is the tool used
to help design highly capable parts that meet set specifications, namley
customer specifications. These specifications are +/- six standard deviations
from the process mean, which is the center line.

As you
can see from the picture, +/-6 deviations (6 sigma) contains 99.9999% of all
values. It can never reach 100% though. This means that there will always be
room for improvement. Requirements and environmental boundaries must be
considered when calculating a six sigma value as well.

The
idea is to identify all of the opportunities for defects and then count the
actual number of them that occur, and then normalize this value to one million
opportunities to find the Defects per Million Opportunities. Now you can
determine the corresponding sigma value. You must locate a table of values for
the one-sided normal distribution. http://www.sixsigma.de/english/sixsigma/6s_e_values.htm
is a fairly simple one to follow. Ideally, defects should be below 3.4 defects
(standard deviations) per million opportunities for a defect. This means that
ideally, the implementation of six sigma will result in an average of only
about 3.4 defects per million units produced.

Other Helpful Sources for Six Sigma
Information:

1.) General
Electric created a Six Sigma Academy in 1994. This is the Web Site address.
It may be helpful for more information and training.

http://www.6-sigma.com/

2.) iSixSigma,
Six Sigma Quality Resources for Achieving Six Sigma Results. This web site has
plenty of information, discussion forums, and updated news on the subject, and
job shops as well.

http://www.isixsigma.com/

3.) This
site is also a good source of information and offers defenitions and step by
step instruction on the how to’s of Six Sigma.

http://www.sixsigma.de/

4.) General
Electric is considered one of the Benchmarks in this area. This web site is
very helpful, not only for information, but for some real life uses.

http://www.ge.com/sixsigma/

5.) Motorola is the company who introduced
this method. It is also considered a major benchmark for Six Sigma Method.

http://www.qa-inc.com/knowledgecente/articles/SixSig_pg1-3.html

Conclusion:

Six
Sigma is far more in depth than this document has illustrated. It is a tool
that if used correctly, can identify key areas of business processes that need
attention to lower defect rates. One of the greatest advantages is that all
the measured improvements achieved through this techneque can be directly
converted into financial results. In fact, more and more shareholders even
require that Six Sigma method be implemented.